(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for automatically analyzing a nucleic acid and, more specifically, to an apparatus for automatically analyzing a nucleic acid capable of simplifying sample preprocessing and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) amplifying and detecting processes.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, molecular diagnosis, which measures DNA, RNA, protein, or metabolite to capture genotype or measure gene variances, biochemical changes, or the like, of a human body, is a sector growing on the back of development of devices for analyzing and determining Omics (i.e., sciences recognizing an organism (or a living thing) as a network and investigating interactions between constituents of the overall novel network behaviors, and the like) and informatics technologies.
As for growth factors over demands, the growth of molecular diagnosis is promoted by various factors such as an increase in demand for customized medical treatment to minimize high clinical failure rates, low patient suitability of developed new medicine, and side effects and to rationalize, medicine costs through reduction of high bio-medical costs, and the like.
However, in the aspect that molecular diagnosis is a tool or means for accurate decision making, reliability, accuracy, rapidness, and convenience have been discussed as the most critical issues, and in particular, a considerable level of technological development is required in various fields such as a device for integrating bio-information and clinical medicine information to create useful knowledge and applying the same, or the like.
In the aspect of business, overcoming low interest in investment, high level of dependency on major medicine development enterprises, an issue including compensation, development of various models available for a direct service to patients, and the like, have been raised as major tasks.
Meanwhile, a molecular diagnosis inspection undergoes a sample preprocessing process of extracting a nucleic acid, or the like, form a specimen such as a blood sample, or the like. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of the sample preprocessing process is a very well known DNA replication method. The use of the technique can selectively and, quickly mass-replicate any DNAs, so PCR is essentially used in various genetic fields such as diagnosing and treating hereditary diseases, forensic medicine, and the like. With this method, DNA desired to be replicated is repeatedly replicated in respective replication steps, each having a particular reaction temperature, by using a DNA polymerase.
Such a replication process uses a periodical circulation of a thermally controlled reaction process, and the amount of initial start molecules is increased as the temperature circulation process is repeated. In general, a DNA replication process through PCR is executed through a replication process by stage.
Namely, PCR starts with a double-strand DNA, and a first reaction of each circulation period is separating the two strands through a heat treatment, which is called denaturing and generally executed at 95° C. The next is a cooling process of coupling primers (a gene sequence of a short single line complementary to a particular gene sequence and synthesized for the purpose of being used in PCR diagnosis, a DNA base sequence determination method, or the like) to the two separated DNA strands. This process is called annealing and executed at 40 to 65° C. A final step is a polymerization process in which a DNA polymerase in the mixture starts DNA synthesis starting from the primers. This process is called extension and executed at 70° C. to 75° C. Here, an accurate temperature of each step may be different according to diagnosis inspection items.
Performing the foregoing sample preprocessing process including a process of mixing a sample and a reagent and, a process of processing a residual consumes a lot of time. In addition, the existing device for performing the sample processing process is fabricated to have a complicating structure, increasing the fabrication unit cost and consumption goods, and when a large amount of samples are collectively processed, the samples may be contaminated.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for the enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.